New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts has selected Mio Ishikawa to be the second recipient of its collaborative fellowship with the Juilliard School. Launched last spring, the CBA-Juilliard Fellowship supports a developing artist and Juilliard alum by providing space and resources that allows the fellow to take risks and try new ideas.
The CBA-Juilliard Fellowship spans the academic year. Ishikawa will have access to CBA’s studio and office space, its network of artists, scholars, and alumni, and NYU’s extensive academic and cultural resources. Ishikawa also will join the CBA’s other fellows for seminars and programs.
Ishikawa is a movement artist based in New York City who has a deep interest in collaboration. A native of Tokyo, she graduated from the Juilliard School in 2019 with a BFA in dance. She appears in Sleep No More, an immersive work by the British theater group, Punchdrunk, and with Sidra Bell Dance New York. Ishikawa has worked with choreographers Stefanie Batten Bland, Alejandro Cerrudo, Maleek Washington, Kyle Abraham, Mariko Kakizaki, and Celia Rowlson-Hall. She is an associate artistic director of Bodysonnet, a collective of contemporary dance makers who work in non-traditional spaces.
During her fellowship, Ishikawa will explore the Japanese concept of “yohaku ma,” which means negative space, by creating what she describes as “dance-based landscapes” that focus on the textures and emotions found in the space between movements.
“The process will involve subtracting movements to create an intricate interplay between what is seen and what is imagined,” Ishikawa says. She plans to develop the concept into an installation piece.
About the Center for Ballet and the Arts
The Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University (CBA) is an international research institute for scholars and artists of ballet and its related arts and sciences. It exists to inspire new ideas and new dances and to expand the way we think about the art form’s history, practice, and performance in the 21st century. The Center is made possible by founding support of the Mellon Foundation and ongoing support of NYU and CBA’s Center Circle.
About the Juilliard School
Founded in 1905, the Juilliard School is a world leader in performing arts education. The school’s mission is to provide the highest caliber of artistic education for gifted musicians, dancers, and actors, composers, choreographers, and playwrights from around the world so that they may achieve their fullest potential as artists, leaders, and global citizens. Led by President Damian Woetzel since 2018, Juilliard is guided in all its work by the core values of excellence; creativity; and equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (EDIB). Juilliard is committed to enrolling the most talented students regardless of their financial background.
